Part Three : I Want You
"Kagome!" Shippou yelled, launching himself into her. As always he was happy to see her. She'd been gone for a few days, and that left him alone with Inuyasha. He nuzzled his nose to her neck and smiled. "I'm so glad you're back!"
"Shippou," she laughed, hugging him tightly. He was such a child sometimes. Literally speaking, he acted his age sometimes. "It's good to see you, too."
Inuyasha snorted, and looked away as Miroku and Sango walked in after Shippou. They both gave Kagome a warm welcome, and even said a few words to Inuyasha, but he didn't really show that it mattered to him. Besides, it was only a few days. A few human days. That was such a short period of time.
But on the other hand, yeah, he did miss Kagome, and so much at that. But she didn't know...
"Can we just go now?" he asked impatiently. He was tired of just sitting around.
"It's going to be dark soon," Miroku commented, peeking out of the hut once again. "We should wait until morning."
"Keh..."
"Come on now, Inuyasha," Kagome sighed. "Miroku's right. We shouldn't be wandering around in the darkness. Not all of us are as strong as you are."
She hit it. His ego. One of the easiest ways to get Inuyasha to agree with her was to hit at his ego. Whether it was a good or bad comment, it always worked. And as usual, it had.
"Fine, we'll leave in the morning."
He pushed himself to his feet and heading out the door. If he had to wait to gather more shards of the Shikon no Tama, then at least he was going to wear out some of his extra energy before it got too late. The dirt under his feet was a refreshing change from the hard wood floor in Kaede's hut. It was so hard in there; the fresh dirt felt nice, it made him feel alive and unconfined.
'I wonder what she was going to tell me,' he thought to himself as he leapt towards the forest of Inuyasha. How strange: it was named after him just because Kikyo had pinned him to a tree there. 'Kikyo...'
Sure, he liked Kagome. He like her a lot, but at the same time, whenever Kikyo came around he couldn't help but find himself fixated on the un-dead priestess. He knew it hurt Kagome, she didn't deny or try to hide that. Maybe she liked him more than he thought she did, or maybe it was just as a friend. But Kikyo had been the one to first help heal his many wounds - the wounds that had been created and had only grown since his childhood. How could he not still care for her? Couldn't Kagome and the others understand that one simple fact?
Breaking out of his thoughts, he discovered that he'd travelled quite a distance from the village. So far, in fact, that he couldn't catch Kagome's scent lingering in the air anymore. He blinked, also taking in the fact that the sun had set long ago. He sighed at himself. The same thoughts just continued to replay in his mind over and over again.
"What am I going to do?" he sighed at himself, crossing his arms. Kagome meant so much to him, or was it the fact that she carried Kikyo's spirit within her? She'd asked him about that once...
"Inuyasha... sometimes I think the only reasons you keep me around are because I can locate the jewel shards and because I'm Kikyo's reincarnation..."
How was he supposed to respond to that? And to top it off, she'd said it just as she was leaving to her own era. She'd left in tears that day; he could smell them coming. He'd felt bad at the time, and he felt bad now, because he still couldn't think of how to answer that.
"Kagome... I..." He blushed, just thinking of her. "I think more of you than you seem to think I do. I think I... I think that I... I think that I'm in love with you."
If he that much trouble saying it while she wasn't there, how could he possibly say it to her face? He could feel the blood in his face, hot with embarassment. But still, what about Kikyo? She had died fifty years ago, so why was she still here? Even if she had been brought back, why was she still here? Did she still want to take his life...?
"I want both... but I can only have one..." he sighed. He found that he was sighing just a little too much that day. "So... I want you, Kagome."